Just found this blogger and his articles that speaks to my passion…and had to share.
Mark Driscoll & Church Discipline
Here are my thoughts that I responded with:
So many thoughts that I know I won’t be able to vocalize in a response…but I talk about abuse over on my site as well. I think this problem of abuse – which is really to have the power over another…is so rampant in our society and especially in our church. I am so thankful to find another voice out here in the www that is bringing attention to it…for the more we bring attention to it – the more we normalize that this IS happening to people, the more healing we can bring to all that are involved.
I have been involved personally in an abuse recovery program called Life Skills, Intl – their class “Learning to Live, Learning to Love”…has completely changed my life and my view on people – especially those that are leading our churches. Learning that most of us come from a less than good childhood, and learning that unless we confront, deal and heal from those childhood traumas/problems…we are going to continue to have behaviors that are not mature adult behaviors – the “Christlikeness” that we so desire to have. No, the behaviors that many if not most of us adults exhibit in situations like these are more like those of a kid…the kid in us that was traumatized at a young age and never learned how to grow up into adulthood. Its the phenomenon that is getting more airplay now called “Arrested in Development.”
I believe that until our pastors and church leaders learn how to heal their own pasts…they will be susceptible to acting out their own hurts on the rest of us…in the form of abuse. It is a vicious cycle that gets worse and worse with every generation – unless we call it out of the dark, expose it to the light and ask God to bring healing on a grand scale.
Furthermore, as I have been on my own journey these last months and years…I have come to whole heartedly believe as I have studied God’s word more closely that the power struggle in life is based on the gender roles that society has set up over the years…not God.
I used to believe in the Mark Driscroll approach to gender roles…that I was a “weaker sex” and that I must submit my will to that of my husband – even if that will was not in line with God nor my best emotional/spiritual interest. In a way, this made life “easier” because I didn’t have to take full responsibility for the lack of spiritual development or whatever went wrong in the household…because ultimately that responsibility was on my husband right? When decisions got hard, I could just default to my husband and back out of the way. This line of thought also allowed me to ignore my God given gifts of leadership and of speaking up against the true “evils” I see in the world…for who was I to lead anyone but women and children.
However, as God has brought me to organizations like Christians for Biblical Equality, to books written about a different way to view God’s view on genders…I have come to believe that God never meant to set up a power struggle from the beginning. This was a result of the Fall, but no means what we should strive to copy in our marriages or churches. This puts men and women, women an children, men and men at odds.
While we say in our modern age that men and women are equal – we still don’t exhibit this equality within our homes or churches and so the subconscious really knows that there is not true equality…and the power struggle begins. This sets up arguments about what the right “hierarchy” shall be. This is implementing the way the world has done things …well forever. This allows people to get into power trips over one another…for when you have been a victim of abuse – until you properly learn how to deal with it – you most likely will pass on the abuse to a victim who is weaker than you – our children being most susceptible to our hurts and pain exhibited in our abuse of them.
I cannot believe that God would mandate the Church to automatically set up this type of system…telling men that they have to bear the brunt of responsibility for the state of our homes and churches. I cannot bear to think that God, who created me in His image – really would call me the “weaker sex”. He would then be calling part of Himself weaker than the other – wouldn’t he?
No, I have come to see that if we would just all stop trying to put ourselves one over the other…that if we would start looking at others as individuals not as male/female, white/black, asian/european…but as individuals gifted by God to do their part in the kingdom – that the focus would get off of us and back on the KINGDOM – where it belongs. And that perhaps, instead of bickering and trying to abuse one another – we could do what God commanded us to do – to make the Garden Flourish!
